GAINESVILLE, Fla. – With online industries and digital markets continuing to rapidly evolve both economically and technologically, antitrust agencies are challenged with applying existing policy frameworks to this new system while developing updated strategies that look to the future.

Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Economics Howard Shelanski will discuss how antitrust agencies are dealing with the changing digital marketplace during the Bayard Wickliffe Heath Memorial Lecture Series at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. The lecture, “Information, Innovation, and Competition Policy for the Internet,” is on Friday, Nov. 16, at 10 a.m. in the Martin H. Levin Advocacy Center courtroom. It is free and open to the public.

Shelanski will specifically examine the theory that under-enforcement of antitrust laws in the digital world results in much lower error costs than over-enforcement, and will look at how competition policy can improve on assessing costs, benefits and risks in digital markets.

Shelanski, who is also a professor at Georgetown Law, has co-written six books and contributed to myriad law reviews and scholarly journals. In 2004, he received Berkeley Law’s Rutter Award for Teaching Distinction. Shelanski’s teachings and research focus on antitrust, regulation and telecommunications policy.

The Heath Memorial Lecture Series is made possible by a gift from Inez Heath, Ph.D., widow of Bayard “Wick” Heath. Before his death in 2008, Heath was the senior competition consultant with Info Tech, a Gainesville firm specializing in statistical and econometric consulting, expert witness testimony and antitrust law. Previous lecturers include Herbert Hovenkamp, William Kovacic and Joseph Harrington.